Thunder stirs under clouds that have not yet rained: the hard beginning of things. The text favors staying correct and laying foundations over rushing ahead.
Thunder ☳, whose quality is movement, lies below; water ☵, whose quality is peril, lies above, pictured here as clouds. Zhu Xi reads the name as difficulty: things just born and not yet through, like a sprout piercing the soil before it can straighten. Movement inside danger can still go through greatly, but this is a time to keep correct and not rush forward.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
屯，元亨，利貞。勿用有攸往，利建侯。
Zhun. Things go through greatly. It is fitting to stay correct and firm. Do not set out to go anywhere yet. It is favorable to establish a lord.
Zhu Xi explains zhun as difficulty, the moment when things are born and not yet through. Thunder moves below while water threatens above: heaven and earth have just met and run straight into peril. Movement can bring success, but in danger the right course is to hold to what is correct and not press on in haste. The first line, a yang line placed under yin lines, is the key to the figure: a capable person who defers to others and wins the people. So Zhu Xi says that for a question about setting up a ruler, this hexagram is favorable.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
雲雷，屯。君子以經綸。
Clouds and thunder: Zhun. The noble person, accordingly, draws out the threads and sets them in order.
The water trigram appears as clouds, Zhu Xi notes, because the rain has not yet fallen: things are still not through. The verb pair comes from silk work, drawing threads out and then sorting them. A time of difficulty, he says, is exactly when the noble person has work to do.
Lines (爻辭)
From the bottom line to the top. In the line names, nine (九) marks a yang line and six (六) a yin line.
Line 1, yang (初九)changing line in the shared reading
磐桓，利居貞，利建侯。
Hesitating, hard to move forward. It is favorable to stay put and be correct and firm. It is favorable to be established as a lord.
Pan huan describes how someone looks when advancing is hard. This is the very start of the difficulty: a yang line at the bottom of the moving trigram whose partner above is a soft line inside the perilous one, so it holds back. Its place is correct, though, so staying put and keeping firm is fitting. As the key line, a yang under yin lines to whom people turn, it pictures a lord.
Line 2, yin (六二)changing line in the shared reading
屯如邅如，乘馬班如。匪寇婚媾，女子貞不字，十年乃字。
Struggling, circling back. The horses stand spread out and do not advance. It is not a raider but a suitor. The young woman stays correct and does not accept a betrothal; after ten years she accepts.
Central and correct, this soft line has its proper partner in the fifth line but rides on the firm first line, which troubles it, so it circles without advancing. The first line is no raider, Zhu Xi says; it only seeks marriage. Keeping to what is right, she refuses, and after ten years, when the count runs out, the wrong suitor leaves and the right match comes together. Zi means to be promised in marriage.
Line 3, yin (六三)changing line in the shared reading
即鹿无虞，惟入于林中。君子幾，不如舍，往吝。
Going after deer without a forester, one only ends up in the middle of the woods. The noble person sees the signs and would do better to give it up. Going on brings humiliation.
Yin in a yang place, neither central nor correct, with no proper partner above: Zhu Xi sees someone acting rashly and walking into trouble, like chasing deer with no forester to guide and getting lost among the trees. The noble person who notices the first signs lets the chase go. Refusing to stop, the text says, ends in shame. Knowing when to drop a pursuit is the heart of this line.
Line 4, yin (六四)changing line in the shared reading
乘馬班如，求婚媾，往吉，无不利。
The horses stand spread out and do not advance. Seek a marriage. Going brings good fortune; there is nothing that is not favorable.
A soft line in a hard time, it cannot climb any higher, so its horses also stand still. Yet the first line keeps correct in its low place and answers it. Zhu Xi therefore reads the prognosis as seeking the match below: going toward that partner brings good fortune. Here the way forward runs downward, toward someone who is already responding.
Line 5, yang (九五)changing line in the shared reading
屯其膏，小貞吉，大貞凶。
Its richness is held back. Correct and firm in small matters: good fortune. Correct and firm in great matters: misfortune.
Firm, central and correct in the ruler's seat, the fifth line still sits inside the perilous trigram in a time of difficulty. Its partner, the second line, is too weak to help, while the first line below has already won the people. It has rich moisture to give, yet cannot spread it. Zhu Xi concludes that in small affairs keeping correct can still succeed, but in large ones even correctness does not escape misfortune.
Top line, yin (上六)changing line in the shared reading
乘馬班如，泣血漣如。
The horses stand spread out and do not advance. Weeping tears of blood, streaming down.
Soft and without a partner, at the very end of the difficulty, this line has nowhere left to advance. Zhu Xi says all that remains is grief and fear. The same image of idle horses appears in the second and fourth lines, but there a partner could be reached; here none is left, and the picture turns to tears that will not stop.
If you drew this hexagram
Which text to read depends on how many lines are changing. With none, read the judgment; with one, read that line; with more, follow Zhu Xi's rules in the Yixue qimeng.
Text: Zhu Xi, Yuanben Zhouyi benyi (原本周易本義), Siku Quanshu Wenyuange copy, as transcribed by the Kanseki Repository (KR1a0031), corrected and punctuated by K-magpie. Translation and explanation: written by AI (Claude) from Zhu Xi's commentary and checked against the text and commentary. Sources and the list of corrections are on the Today's Hexagram page.
Characters corrected in this hexagram — judgment: 勿用利攸往 → 勿用有攸往 · Line 1, yang (初九): 盤桓利居利建侯 → 磐桓利居貞利建侯